


An Ancient and Noble Game

by Sineala



Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Crack, Drinking Games, First Time, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-02
Updated: 2011-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:56:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marcus and Esca play Never Have I Ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Ancient and Noble Game

**Author's Note:**

> This story is canon-era, but makes no attempt whatsoever at historical accuracy, as you can probably tell by the summary.
> 
> Thanks to Lishan, Piscaria and Carmarthen for the encouragement and to Lysimache for her Latin assistance.

"How about another game?"

Marcus looks up at Esca, a strange, half-despairing look in his eyes, as Esca sets the two cups and the wineskin carefully before them.

"Another game?" Marcus says, sighing, and it is only that Esca has known him so long that he can mark the irritation in his voice. "We have played at dice, we have played at latrunculi, you have told me every awful joke you know, including that story about tickling fish--"

"That was not a joke," Esca tells him, smiling, "and besides, there is nothing else to do in this weather."

He raises a hand in the general direction of outdoors, the world outside their small house, which is currently being blanketed in snow, snow, and more snow, hissing softly as it falls. Last time he looked outside, the wind was blowing sideways, and hard. No, they will be staying in here.

As if underscoring his thoughts, Marcus shivers and pulls the cloak and blanket tighter over his shoulders. And it is then that he takes notice of what Esca has put on the table before them; his eyes widen, then he squints in confusion. "Drinking? You said it was a game, but you only brought wine. I don't understand."

Esca allows himself a smile. "It is a most excellent game." He thinks about how best to explain this to Marcus. "It is an ancient and noble game of my people. Sometimes warriors, at feasts, when the drink is in them -- often they boast of their accomplishments in this battle or that, or how many cattle they have, and they compare themselves to other warriors."

"I don't have any cattle," Marcus says, still clearly puzzled, and Esca chokes back a laugh.

"This is similar," he says, with a kindly voice. "It is akin to it, but you need have no cattle." If he does not make the game sound respectable enough, Marcus will not join him, and then, well, they will not have any fun. Perhaps with a cup of wine in him, even pure, chaste Marcus will begin to live a little.

Marcus frowns. "But it is a game for warriors?"

"Oh, yes," Esca assures him, and it is only a bit of a lie. He had played it after he was made a man, true, though it is very much a game enjoyed by the youth. The youth who desire each other secretly, of course, and wish to talk about bedding each other. And if he cannot have Marcus -- because surely Marcus would have said something if he wanted this, now that Esca is free and equal to him -- well, at least he can drink with him as he imagines it. "In Latin, I think you might call it--" he stops to think of how best to put the name-- "Hoc Ego Numquam."

Marcus is still frowning, and Esca begins to worry that perhaps Marcus will not do it, and here he has not even explained the game yet. "That is a strange name."

"It is an excellent game," Esca says, quickly, in the most reassuring voice he has, and Marcus, ever-trusting, smiles and relaxes. "You will like it. I like it."

"How do you play it?"

"Oh, it is simple," he says, as he reaches out for the wineskin, filling their cups as he talks. If Marcus notices that he does not mix the wine, he says nothing to interrupt him. "It is a kind of boasting game, only you boast about what you have not done."

Marcus' eyes track the movement of Esca's hands over the cups. "How does that work, then?" He still sounds suspicious, but there is some eagerness mixed in there too. Perhaps Marcus, ever-virtuous, will be proud to show off all the things he has never tried, has never thought of trying.

"Well," Esca begins, putting the skin down and handing Marcus his cup. "The one whose turn it is begins by naming a thing he has never done. And everyone else -- they drink, but only if they _have_ done the thing."

Marcus gives a nod and a small, slow smile, and Esca knows now that he is interested. Esca returns the smile and tries not to think about the tiny warm fire, beginning to kindle within him. Marcus is only interested in the game, not in him. Not like that.

"And if they have not done the thing?" Marcus asks. "Do they not drink?"

Esca nods. "Exactly so." His palms, suddenly sweaty, slip on the clay mug.

Marcus looks confused again and Esca wonders, with a twist of cold, cold fear, whether Marcus has figured this out, whether he is refusing. But no, he is opening his mouth and asking another question. "And how is the winner determined?"

An excellent question. Esca swallows hard. He cannot very well tell Marcus the truth -- the whole thing is flirtatious drunken gossip and, at least when he has played it, often involved the participants deciding they would rather be kissing each other, ending the game very pleasantly all around.

"Why," he says brightly, as he lies through his teeth, "the winner is the man who can still stand up by the end of it!"

There, Marcus will like that. That way, he will probably even win, what with all of his Roman virtue. For when they get drunk enough that the questions turn to romantic conquests, how can he have had any? He never talks of any. Perhaps he bought a whore once in the army and hated the whole thing.

"Very well." Marcus smiles. "Can you go first to give me an example, though? Just so that it is clear in my mind."

"Certainly." He pauses to think of something suitably ridiculous. "So, it is my turn, and I say that I have never -- oh, let's say, I have never worn a woman's stola, because I have not." He looks over to see Marcus regarding him intently. "Now, you would not drink, of course, because you have never--"

He stops.

Marcus has his cup to his lips and is taking a drink. One swallow. His throat works, and Esca stares helplessly.

After he is done, he lowers his cup, and seeing what must surely be Esca's expression of utter astonishment, his face is twisted in confusion and concern. "Did I do it wrong?" he asks, and, oh, it is just like Marcus to worry about doing things rightly, even when it is a silly drinking-game. "You said I should drink if I had done it."

"I did," Esca says, faintly, when he trusts himself to speak. "I only did not think you _had_."

And Marcus laughs at that, bright and warm and delighted, and then shrugs. "Ah, it was nothing. It was only when I was very young, a new recruit, and we were all on leave, and there was this woman, and well--" he waves his hand-- "it is a long story. I wouldn't want to bore you."

"Oh."

Perhaps this game is going to be more... interesting... than he had thought.

"So it is my turn, then?" Marcus asks, eagerly. "We take turns asking?"

Esca nods, still a little shocked by the idea that perhaps Marcus' past was not as perfect as he had thought. "Indeed."

"And my goal is to make you drink, then?" Across the table, Marcus shifts in his chair, and Esca could swear the smile that curls across Marcus' lips is practically devious. "That is an easy thing. I--" he draws out the word-- "have never been a gladiator."

True enough. Esca returns the smile and lifts his own mug to his lips, taking a sip. The wine is stronger than he had thought; perhaps he should have watered it after all. And if this is how Marcus is going to play, Esca will be under the table soon, for their lives have been so different until now; one could hardly find two friends from such far-apart places, with such pasts.

Still, he can use it to his advantage just as much as Marcus can. "I have never been a soldier," he returns.

Marcus spreads his hands wide and grins, seeming to acknowledge Esca's use of the same strategy, and then he takes another drink, a sizable one. "I do not bear the ink of the tribes," he says, and Esca tries desperately not to stare as Marcus' tongue flicks out of his mouth to lick up the last few dark drops of wine from his lips.

Esca takes a much more generous sip of wine this time, drinking it so fast that he hardly tastes the honey. Marcus is looking at him, still looking at him and, oh, with his mouth like that--

"I have," Esca begins, unsteadily, and he shuts his eyes. "I have never been to Rome," he finishes, opening them again.

Marcus tilts his head a little and drinks. "I am not Brigantes," he says, quickly.

Another sip, and Esca breathes deeply before he says this one, but for a different reason. "I have never owned a slave."

Marcus' eyes widen, shadowed with some emotion Esca cannot quite place, and he drinks. "And I have never been one," he says, quietly.

But he has been a slave, Esca wants to say, he was Esca's slave, or at least Esca pretended he was, those days among the Seal People when they had to do anything to stay alive. Marcus was not a real slave, and maybe that is what he means. But Marcus believed it was real, then, and so it should count. But he does not want to talk about this.

Before Esca can drink, Marcus reaches out a hand, not quite touching him, and Esca stops, cup halfway to his mouth.

"I have never been made a citizen by the emperor's favor, either," Marcus says, and his voice is low and serious. "And I have never saved the life of a man whom I had every reason to hate, and I have never rescued a standard of his army only because he asked me to." There is a faint smile on Marcus' face, though he is pale with tension. "So, please, Esca, happier things?"

Esca drinks anyway, a little sip, because he has to -- all of those things were true, after all -- and he smiles back. "You are right, of course. Hmm. I have never--" this is a difficult game when they are not quite drunk enough yet for the more interesting questions-- "I have never been awarded a military armilla."

Marcus tilts his head back as he drains the last of his wine, and then stares down at it, perhaps surprised by its emptiness, as he pours another cupful. His hands are steady still, but his eyes are a bit brighter.

Esca waits for the next statement, but Marcus only grins, wide and inviting except he cannot possibly be inviting anything like what Esca wants. Perhaps this was a poor idea. He cannot possibly do this to Marcus.

"Esca," Marcus says, and his voice is -- coaxing? wheedling? -- as he talks. "This game is going to be terribly boring if we only tell each other things we already know. Is that truly how it is played among your people?"

He feels his face grow hot, and hastily he looks down to refill his cup, even though it is not even empty. "Not exactly," he says, and he finds he cannot meet Marcus' eyes.

"Then how?"

"Well," Esca temporizes, and when he looks up he sees that Marcus is grinning at him, an odd look, somehow daring in a way he cannot quite put a name to, "we usually ask different questions. You have to understand, I was young when I played this, and the youth, they are often concerned with, well, different topics."

And Marcus... starts laughing. "So that is how it is, eh?" he manages, and his eyes are sparkling in amusement. When he is happy like this, Esca thinks Marcus is perhaps the most handsome man he has ever seen. "We are to boast about all the women we have loved, or something like that?"

"Something like that." Esca's mouth is dry, but he dares not moisten it with wine. He will be drinking much more very shortly, he suspects. And it was not, of course, women that he had had in mind. Ah, well, a small but increasingly noisy strand of lascivious thought points out, perhaps he will have more pleasure imagining Marcus, pure and uncorrupted, waiting for him-- no. Why is he taking advantage of the poor man in his mind? Perhaps Esca is too drunk for this. On the other hand, he wants to know, and he is not quite sober enough to suggest they stop. That would be no fun at all.

Marcus' lips part in amusement. "Why, Esca! You're nearly as bad as Rumor herself!" And he starts laughing again. "They would have loved this game in the army," he murmurs, and then, louder: "If you wanted the list of all the women I've been with, you could have asked," he continues, grinning, while Esca wonders who this man is and what he did to his Marcus. "It's a very short list."

He is as virginal as Esca thought, then, and the drink has made him more matter-of-fact about it.

"It isn't a game if you just tell me," Esca retorts.

The words are given intense concentration by Marcus as he screws up his face, and then he smiles. "Very true. And this way I get to find out more about you, don't I?" He raises his eyebrows, and the smile grows wider, and if this were anyone else, any of the other times he has played this, Esca would be kissing him now.

But this is Marcus. Esca swallows and makes himself nod. "I suppose you do."

"Take a drink, then," Marcus says, still grinning, "because I have never kissed a woman." And he actually sounds proud.

Esca gapes. "I-- you-- never?"

"Really, never. While your mouth is open like that," Marcus advises, smugly, "go on and pour the wine in."

"I don't know why you should be happy about that," Esca says, torn between dismay, confusion, and a growing desire to kiss the chaste, pious superiority right off Marcus' face. "Every time I think I understand you Romans, you do a thing like this. You're missing out on so much, Marcus."

"I don't think I am," Marcus replies, just as smugly as before. "Go on."

So Esca drinks, and drinks, because after all he has kissed a fair number of women in his life, and the drink ought to do that justice.

"There," he says when he finishes, half-defiant. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand as the wine sloshes in his stomach and goes almost instantly to his head. "Enough for you?"

The words are practically snapped out, a tone he did not mean to give voice to, and he is about to apologize when Marcus bares his teeth; the grin is clearly a dare now.

"Oh, I can handle much more," Marcus says, and the words are practically a purr of self-satisfaction. Let him be like that! "Your turn."

"Fine!" Esca glares. "I've never slept with any Romans; how about you?" He isn't really thinking about the words until he's said them, and then he realizes he's just wasted a question, given Marcus' last response, because of course--

Marcus is staring at him thoughtfully. "Are you asking about men or women?"

The way Esca said it, of course, it could mean either. But Marcus wants him to be specific. He might as well split up Marcus' non-existent love affairs by sex. Esca shrugs. "I don't know. Women, then. I've never been with a Roman woman."

And Marcus does not drink. Esca doesn't really expect him to. But then he speaks.

"She wasn't Roman." Marcus stares at the wine, turning the cup around and around in his hands. His voice is slow, reluctant. "I don't know where she was from. She didn't even speak Latin, or much Greek. I was in Judaea, and the soldiers, they all wanted to go to a brothel, and when they found out I had never had a woman, well--" he stops and looks up. "It wasn't pleasant for either of us, I don't think."

It can't have been good, Esca thinks. Putting the answers together, Marcus slept with a woman -- one woman, from the sound of it -- and never even kissed her. "Ah, Marcus, I am sorry it happened like that," he says, and he is stumbling over his words now, with all the wine in him. "It doesn't have to be like that."

Marcus looks up sharply, a sudden motion, his face full of worry, and they are not in any state to have a serious conversation about any of this. "No, no, I am fine," he says. "I was only thinking, well, if we are talking about this at all, you should only answer for things you did willingly, because if." He halts, and his distress is obvious.

Esca understands. "It is all right," he says. And he is daring -- or at least drunk -- because he reaches across the table to pat Marcus' arm in reassurance. "They never-- no one ever forced me. I am only talking about things I chose to do, I promise."

Marcus relaxes, and Esca lets his wrist go.

"Well, then." Marcus smiles, at ease again. "Talking about willing things only does exclude the incident with the stola, sad to say."

Esca chuckles. "You will have to tell me about that sometime."

"I will have to be even more drunk than this," Marcus says, and he pours more wine in his cup, though it was not empty.

"Someday, then." Esca frowns. "But it is not fair if you took a drink for that when you should not have."

Marcus grins at him. "I can hardly undo it."

"No," says Esca mournfully, and then inspiration strikes. "I will drink more to make up for it!"

Once he has done that, he raises his eyes from the clay rim to see Marcus smiling at him.

"Drink again," Marcus says, and the look in his eyes is positively wicked. "I haven't slept with any Britons. No, wait. Women. British women. Let's be specific."

"I hate you," Esca informs him, and he tips the rest of the contents of his cup down his throat.

He considers Marcus -- who is looking horribly self-satisfied and even more attractive with every passing moment, a feat that Esca would have thought impossible -- and sighs. It isn't supposed to be like this. Marcus isn't supposed to try to win. It isn't a game that's about winning. But he told Marcus it was, and Marcus is nothing if not determined. Damn him.

Esca cannot, of course, stay angry at Marcus for very long. He loves Marcus, and he suspects that he is an unfortunately small number of drinks away from telling Marcus exactly how much he loves him and in what other ways he would like to express it. But he cannot. This is Marcus who has never kissed a woman, after all.

Marcus smiles, a smile full of confidence, a victor's smile, and there is nothing Esca wants more than to kiss him. Or at least, that is the first of the things Esca wants, a list that is growing increasingly longer and more vivid. Think of the things he could show Marcus for the first time, and it would all be so wonderfully new.

"You don't hate me," Marcus says.

"I don't hate you," Esca echoes, stupidly, grinning, because it's better than saying the rest of the truth.

A raised eyebrow. "Aren't you going to tell me about them?"

"Who?"

"The women, of course." Marcus' sigh is exasperated. "I told you my story. Come on, then. Out with it." He smiles. "I want details."

Perhaps they will be playing the game as it is meant to be played after all. Esca's face definitely feels as hot as it did the last time he played this, when he was fourteen and all he had ever done with anyone was steal kisses in the shade on lazy summer days.

"I--" he starts and stops, awkward. It is all just as hard to say, it seems.

"Esca!" Marcus says, and his smile is filled with a gentle amusement. "Are you shy? About this? It was your game. We don't have to keep playing if you don't want to, you know."

He pours and takes another drink, with determination, even though it was not his turn, because perhaps more wine will make it all easier to say. "Four," he says, finally, and glares at Marcus, daring him to speak ill of him. Maybe he will think it is too many women, or too few--

"A fine number." Marcus grins. "All Brigantes, then? I suppose you will tell me the women of your people are the most beautiful. Or is it Roman women you like best, and you never found the courage to admit it?" He laughs again. "Oh, is that your secret shame?"

Marcus is so close to the truth, and yet so far from it. Nor does Esca have the courage to tell him whom he truly likes best.

Esca coughs and returns to the topic at hand. "Of course they were beautiful. They were fine women." He grins, remembering that awkward first time. "Actually, they were mainly the sisters of my friends, and I liked them very much, though it was never anything truly serious between any of us." Ah, the serious one, though, that was one of his friends -- but surely Marcus will never think to ask about men.

"So you were never promised in marriage?"

"I was too young for that," Esca says, idly taking another sip of his wine. "And besides--"

And besides, anyone with eyes could see that he and Trenorix cared only for each other. It wasn't as though no one had suggested the idea of a wedding to Esca, but it did make him rather unconvincing as marriage material to the neighboring clans; the clan-queens were all strong-willed enough that they wanted to marry their daughters off to someone who was at least not obviously in love with someone else. It will pass, his mother had said, desperately, though even she had to know there were warriors who always looked thus at their shieldbearers no matter how many children their wives bore them.

He remembers Trenorix' eyes, bright with passion and loyalty and _everything_ , the day they swore their secret oaths to each other in the glade. And it had passed, though not how anyone would have wanted.

He had found Trenorix' body just as the Roman slavers had found him.

"Esca?" Marcus asks, his voice tense with concern. "What's the matter? You're--"

Hurriedly, Esca wipes the tears from his face. He has not thought about Trenorix in years, and he is remembering too well the reasons why. "Nothing," he says, quickly. "Another story. You will have to guess if you want that one." And Marcus will never guess.

"From the way you look, it sounds like something I should not be guessing," Marcus says, quietly, and then, brighter now: "Come now, your turn to pry more secrets out of me. I have better ones."

"You?" Esca says in disbelief. "You've just told me you've been with one woman in your entire life."

"I also told you I got drunk and put on a stola," Marcus points out. "It's only that you're not asking the right questions."

What questions is he supposed to ask? "I only happened upon that one by chance. If everything else you have done is as strange, I will never think to ask of it."

Marcus' mouth quirks. "Then be systematic. I'm sure you'll find something."

Systematic, hmm? He can do that. Well, he has just asked about Roman women, and Marcus has said no. To be complete, he might as well ask about the men, although surely Marcus would never even have entertained the idea of them, if he did not even think of women.

"You'll say no, I suppose," Esca says, wondering why Marcus' smile is so queer, "but for my turn I will say then that I have never slept with a Roman man. And I don't mean being asleep," he adds, just in case Marcus is going to be picky about the way he has worded it. "You know what I mean."

Marcus grins crookedly at him--

And then he raises his cup, throws his head back, and drains the entire thing.

When he puts the cup down he is still grinning, and Esca has decided this is some mad trick of the gods, who have now robbed him of his powers of speech. "You-- really-- you did-- what?"

All he can think of now is Marcus, Marcus kissing a thousand anonymous men, Marcus on his knees, oh, Marcus kneeling before him, wanton and eager and earnest, and he can picture it just perfectly. Even with all the wine in him, he is aroused now, aching, burning, yearning for it--

And Marcus is laughing and laughing. "Oh, Esca," he says, and his voice is full of amused teasing. He is enjoying this. Damn him, this is what Esca was supposed to do to _him_. "You should have seen your face just now. Did you really think I never had?"

Esca takes a few slow shaking breaths, until he is once again in control of himself, as much control as he can be, though his braccae are still uncomfortably tight. Thank the gods there is a table between them. "You never speak of it," he manages, still staring helplessly at Marcus, at Marcus' mouth that has kissed hundreds of men, surely, at his hands that have-- he must not think of this.

"You never speak of it either," Marcus says, mildly enough, "but I did not go around thinking you were akin to a Vestal!" There is only a little sting in his words.

"I know some things are shameful for Romans, and with you so concerned with your honor and virtue, Marcus--"

An explanation occurs to him. Perhaps Marcus only ever was with a man in the approved way of the Romans, once or twice, when he was young. Yes, that must be it. Perhaps it is nothing like what he is imagining.

Marcus is grinning again, a wild, daring smile. "I think you have some misconceptions about my virtue."

"So enlighten me." Esca takes another drink; he is beyond caring about the actual rules of the game. "How many?"

And at this Marcus blushes. "I-- honestly, I've lost count." Another grin.

"And what did you do with them?"

"Oh, everything." Marcus' smile is knowing, inviting, and maybe, maybe he means-- but he would have said. He would have said by now.

And Marcus cannot even mean that. There are things no Roman would dare. Esca knows that much. "Everything?"

Marcus nods.

"Hands?" Esca asks, and Marcus snorts at him in derision.

"I am not a youth who has only just discovered his cock." And he must be drunk now, because Esca does not think he has ever heard Marcus talk with crude soldiers' words. "Of course, hands. That hardly even counts!"

That was what he had done with Trenorix most of the time, Esca thinks ruefully.

"Fine, then. You fucked them?"

Marcus nods and Esca pauses before asking the next question, because surely Marcus cannot have, surely a citizen such as Marcus would never have done it the other way around. "They fucked you?"

Marcus' smile is glorious. "It's wonderful, isn't it?"

Esca cannot even form thoughts, much less words, for his mind -- and other much less noble parts of his body -- instantly occupy themselves with picturing Marcus bent over, on hands and knees, begging for it. "I-- I--"

"Of course--" the smile has turned wistful now-- "I have hardly had the opportunity since I left the army. Such a shame. Wouldn't you agree? It is one of the best things in life, eh?"

Esca recovers enough composure to speak. "I wouldn't know." He winces. He hadn't quite meant to admit to that, but Trenorix had been too afraid he would hurt him, so they had never tried it that way around.

There is a kind of pity in Marcus' voice, one he covers with more laughter. "You never? Here, I'll take a drink for that--" he pours himself more wine-- "as that's worth another."

"It wasn't your turn." Esca's voice is faint in his ears. "And I suppose if I ask about the uses you have put your mouth to...?"

Marcus tilts his head, a wobbly, prideful gesture. "Best cocksucker in the Tenth Fretensis." The look turns thoughtful. "Mind you, there wasn't much competition for that one. But if there had been, I would have won." He licks his lips, and oh, that has to be deliberate, it has to, but he can't ask, he can't--

"Well, then," Esca manages. "Your turn, as I am obviously out of things to ask about that you could have done with a man."

A blink. "That's really all you can think of?"

Oh, he will never, ever be able to think of Marcus in quite the same way again. This may make things awkward. It will also be even more awkward if he gets hard every time he looks at the man. Esca shifts in his seat.

"Well, what else is there?"

"There was that time I sucked off my whole squad one night in the barracks." Marcus smiles, and Esca is not, not, not thinking about that right now. He is far too old to be coming in his braccae. "You didn't ask about more than one man at a time. Oh, and there was my centurion--"

Esca resists the urge to put his face in his hands even as his traitorous cock twitches in interest. "You slept with your centurion."

"Wonderful man." Marcus' voice is fond. "Good hand with a vine-staff."

Esca stares at him in mingled horror and confusion. "He beat you?"

"Oh, not like that!" A laugh. "I was a perfectly well-behaved soldier. Hardly ever up for discipline. No," he says, thoughtfully, "we took turns, of course. Though he liked being tied down more than I did, for the beating." And Marcus is still talking, his eyes bright, his face flushed. "If you ever want to get fucked someday, you should ask the man to beat you a little first, if you think you might like that. It really is superb--"

"Marcus," Esca croaks out. He can hardly breathe. He did not even know these things were possible, and now Marcus has done them already, all of them. And he is not sure whether it is good that his body still sings with arousal, that he would do these things with Marcus, he would try them.

"What?" Marcus asks, confused.

He can't even explain. Esca sighs. "This is not what I expected."

There is a long pause, and then Marcus leans back in his chair and chuckles. "Oh, I think I see. You thought I was as pure as a maiden, eh? You thought you'd name a few things that I hadn't done, and I would be shocked at your wild barbarian ways."

"Something like that," Esca mumbles, staring fixedly at the table. "But I see that in fact I am the purest one here."

Marcus laughs. "Oh, Esca. So what have you done, then? I assume you have slept with some British men, then, although clearly you have missed out on all the best parts."

"One," Esca whispers, and he can't even look at Marcus. "I loved one man, when I was still with my people. I was seventeen. His name was Trenorix, and I loved him more than anything."

Marcus is silent for a long time. Esca is grateful that Marcus does not ask what happened to him. Perhaps he knows.

"I-- when I was talking, before, I wasn't talking about love."

And Esca lifts his head at that to find Marcus looking at him with kind, sad eyes.

"You never? How can you never have...?"

Marcus shakes his head. "I never. Here, I'll take a drink," he says, and does so.

Esca smiles weakly. "I think you're playing backwards."

"I think the rules were suggestions, weren't they?" Marcus has clearly understood the entire game now. "And, well. No one truly cared for me, Aquila's disgraced son, and I learned not to care for them in return. I knew that I was pretty enough, and if that was going to be all it was, I might as well help myself to all the pleasures I could."

 _I care_ , Esca thinks, and bites his lip. "It is sad to think of that happening to you. That is not how it should be."

"Don't be sad," Marcus says, and his smile is a little forced. "I was as happy as I could be. And I am glad you had such a fine lover, for however long you had him."

"I as well," Esca replies.

Marcus takes another drink. "Whose turn was it?" It is an ungraceful segue given how inebriated they both are, but Esca is thankful for it.

"Only the gods know," Esca says, smiling.

"Bacchus says it's yours. I hear him now." Marcus laughs and pushes the wineskin over.

Esca laughs. "No, it should be your turn to ask. You've drunk more than I have."

"'M bigger than you," Marcus slurs, cheerfully.

Esca returns the cheerful look, tinged with annoyance, for Marcus knows by now that Esca hates when he points that out. "You like to drink your wine watered, Marcus, and this isn't. Come on, ask me something."

Another laugh. "I can't think of anything that will make you drink. You've hardly done anything, Esca."

He'd like to. Oh, he'd like to. And Marcus, it seems, could show him everything. Marcus is probably an excellent lover, for he knows enough about the man to know that even his drunken boasts are scrupulously honest, and, oh, Marcus' _mouth_ ; Marcus is smiling and smiling, and his lips are slick and wet--

Esca puts his mug on the table and shifts position again as blood pounds through him. He wonders how he has any blood left in the rest of his body, for it is all pooling hot and low in his belly.

"Do you want help, then?"

Maybe he wants the same kind of help Esca wants. Maybe, maybe. Maybe Esca's mind should _shut up_.

Marcus' smile has far too many teeth. "Oh?"

"It is easy." Esca leans back and tries to look casual. "As we were talking about my past lover just now, you have only to say you have never loved a man of the Brigantes. And then I must drink."

He reaches forward to pick up his cup -- and then stops, frozen by the look on Marcus' face. Marcus, Marcus who has clearly done everything under the sun with men, has gone pale at his words.

"I--" the muscles in Marcus' throat work convulsively as he swallows-- "I don't think I can say that."

"Why?"

With the wine slowing his thoughts, it is only after Esca has asked the question that he realizes what Marcus must mean. Oh. _Oh_. Marcus wants-- he can't-- does he? What if he does? What if they both want this?

Though his eyes are wide in apprehension, Marcus meets his gaze bravely.

"I can't say it because it wouldn't be true," Marcus whispers.

"Marcus?"

"I have wanted," Marcus breathes, "oh, Esca, I have wanted you for so long now. Please."

It is real. How can it be real? Is Esca dreaming? Perhaps he drifted off to sleep. He thinks his mouth is hanging open.

"Esca?" Marcus says again, and he is beginning to look concerned. "By Pollux, Esca, say something. Tell me I haven't made a fool of myself. I thought you wanted-- I thought, sometimes, the way you looked at me-- but maybe I was only imagining it because I wanted it to be true so much--"

"Yes," Esca says, still in a daze. "Marcus, please, _yes_ \--"

And he holds out his hand.

Marcus grabs him by the wrist and drags him halfway across the table, knocking the cups, spilling the wine. There is wine soaking Esca's tunic, dripping dark on the floor. He doesn't care, because then Marcus' mouth meets his, clumsy but so, so sweet.

Marcus laughs against his lips and Esca reaches out his other hand, trying to pull him closer -- why is there so much in the _way_? -- and then the wineskin topples too, and damn, now Esca is covered in it.

"Hope you don't mind the wine," Marcus manages, still laughing.

Esca bites Marcus' lower lip as he has wanted to do for so many years and enjoys the shudder of desire that runs through Marcus, the way his hands tighten on Esca.

"I needed an excuse to take my clothes off, didn't I?"

Another laugh. "And here I was going to offer to lick the rest off you."

Now it is Esca's turn to shudder. The things he has pictured, he can have them, he can have them all--

"Bed," he says, when he has recovered a semblance of thought. "Or somewhere else by the fire at least, if I'm getting undressed in this weather."

It is then that they discover that neither of them can really walk very well at all, and they lurch across the house together, laughing. Esca had forgotten just how heavy Marcus is.

"If we can both stand up," Marcus asks, turning his head to breathe most distractingly into Esca's ear, "are we both winners?"

"Definitely," Esca assures him, as he tumbles Marcus down onto the blankets. Marcus' bed.

Maybe they will put the beds together tomorrow, he thinks. Then Marcus arches up against him, hard against him, and Esca moans and forgets everything else.

They separate enough to pull their clothing off, fumbling with belts and tunics and braccae, until Marcus, sprawled back across the bed, naked and unashamed, wanton and beautiful and _all his_ , is looking up and grinning at Esca who has just kicked off the last of his clothing. Esca can feel the heat of the fire against his back, and it is a bit cold, but luckily not too much.

Marcus looks him up and down as if he is the best thing he has ever seen, a smile playing across his lips. "You know, when I said I was bigger, I think I might have been wrong. Look at you, hey!" He sounds absolutely delighted.

Esca snorts. "I thought you were talking about height."

"I thought so as well." Marcus laughs. "But, oh, now I especially want you to fuck me." He says this so happily, like he has pictured the very thing for years, just as Esca has. If this is what Marcus is like when he truly relaxes, Esca very possibly never wants to see him sober again. "Would you do that? I don't think we talked about whether you'd done that--"

"I have," Esca says, grinning, "and of course I would."

And then, of course, he moves to push his clothing away with one foot and loses his balance, crashing unceremoniously to the mattress.

Marcus starts laughing again. "Maybe not right now, though. Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," Esca agrees, his heart soaring. Marcus already wants to do this again.

Still laughing, Marcus kisses him and kisses him, with slow, languorous kisses, as if there is nowhere else he would rather be, nothing he would rather be doing than this. His lips are on Esca's mouth, Esca's cheek, his jaw, then down his throat, and Esca shivers with the sudden vulnerability of it.

Is this what Marcus does to everyone, he wonders? Is this how it was with Marcus' friends, his tentmates, his centurion? Esca doesn't want to be one of the list of countless men. He wants to be special, different. He wants Marcus to remember him. But he cannot ask this.

Then Marcus has a warm hand on his shoulder, pressing gently, a suggestion of movement. "Here," Marcus offers. "I can think of something that you don't have to balance well to do."

"Hmm?"

Esca lets Marcus push him to his back, and now he is the one spread across the lumpy straw mattress. Marcus, for his part, slides down the bed to kneel on the floor, and Esca is not stupid. He knows what Marcus is offering now.

"All you have to do is lie here," Marcus says, looking up along the length of his body. It is a hungry, needy look, and Esca shudders again. "If you want to," he adds. "I want to. Oh, you have no idea how much I want to."

"You did say before that you were the best in the Tenth," Esca says, and tries to make himself smile. He does not want what Marcus has given everyone else if he did it without feeling. He wants Marcus' heart.

Thankfully, Marcus misinterprets his reticence. "Oh, have you never done this either?" he asks, pained. "Maybe we should have finished the game."

"No, no, I have," Esca says, quickly. "A few times. And I would like it, really. It has only been a while." He hopes Marcus believes that that is all it is.

Marcus' smile is filled with determination, the way he looks when they are about to spar. As if this is a contest that he must win. Trust Marcus to want to be the best. "It has been a while for me as well," he says, "and I am drunk enough that I fear this will not be my very best display of skill." He bites his lip nervously.

As if that is what Esca cares about. Esca stretches his hand down and manages to reach Marcus' head, combing his fingers through his hair. "I am sure I will enjoy it."

And then Marcus has his mouth on him, taking him in and down like Marcus does not have to worry about such insignificant things as breathing, or choking. It is nothing like the fumblings of Esca's youth. It is wet and hot and messy, and so good that Esca, who had been thinking that perhaps he was too drunk for this after all, is precipitously close to coming already.

"Marcus," he is saying, panting, curling his hands in Marcus' hair, in the blankets. "Yes, please, yes--"

He is shoving his hips up, pushing into Marcus' mouth, trying to get _more_ , closer, harder, and Marcus isn't even trying to stop him or hold him down. No, Marcus is moaning like there is nothing in the world he wants more than Esca's cock, and oh, that idea is wondrous--

"Oh, Marcus," he gasps, "please, I'm going to--"

He doesn't know how else to warn him, but Marcus' eyes meet his. Marcus slides one hand to the base of Esca's cock, stroking him roughly, once, twice, and then Esca throws his head back and is gone.

When he can breathe again, when he can see again, Marcus is wiping off his slick mouth, obscenely red, and smiling. He swallowed, of course he did.

"How did you even do that?" Esca asks, weakly. He can barely lift his head.

Marcus laughs. "Practice."

Oh, of course. They talked about it. Well, if it was what Marcus did for everyone, at least it was good. Esca smiles. He will not let this bother him. He will not. What claim does he have on Marcus, after all?

"You have to teach me how to do that," Esca says, and then surprises himself with a yawn. "Maybe not tonight, though. But I would certainly return the favor now if you will let me."

He gestures awkwardly over at Marcus. He has done this a few times himself, after all; he can definitely do the same for Marcus.

Marcus smiles. "You do not have to do it just because I did it for you." He looks almost nervous. "Truly, Esca, you do not have to do anything."

"Oh, quiet," Esca snaps. "I am hardly a virgin. Come here already." He grabs Marcus' hand and pulls him up to the bed, and then Marcus is next to him, under him, lax and willing and so, so trusting.

Marcus' eyes are bright, and he groans as Esca rolls atop him.

"I'll tell you what I'm good at," Esca whispers, working his arm between them. "You didn't ask, Marcus, did you? I'll tell you. I am very good with my hands. You know, you said it didn't count."

He wraps his fingers around Marcus' cock at the same time as he kisses him; Marcus moans incoherently into his mouth. And then he lets him go, to stroke over Marcus' thighs and under, along the curve of Marcus' buttocks. Marcus lifts his hips, insistent, trying to fuck himself on Esca's fingers.

"You'll like my fingers," Esca says, stroking him just there, not quite in, and the moan is one of inarticulate frustration. "Look, I can have you begging me to fuck you, and this is just my fingertips, eh?"

He _pushes_ , just a little, and Marcus groans and arches against him, his cock trapped between their bodies.

"Ah--" Marcus breathes. "Esca, more-- I need--"

"Yes?" He expects Marcus to say he needs to be fucked. Something like that. Something usual. The sort of thing the hundreds of others would say.

Marcus' head is turned to one side, pushed against the blankets. "Please. Anything. Kiss me. Talk to me more." His lips part, a distracted grin. "I like how you're talking to me."

"Do you?" Esca rewards him with a slide of his fingers, and Marcus clenches against him.

Marcus is shaking now, his eyes unfocused. "Then I know it's you, oh, Esca. I wouldn't-- I just want this to be you." The words are hardly making sense, but they are exactly what Esca has wanted to hear all the same.

Esca laughs, and he thinks he might die from the joy of it. "Then I'll talk," he says, moving so he can get his other arm free, to take Marcus in hand. "Do you want me to tell you how you are handsome? How fine you feel? How I have wanted to do this for years?"

Marcus' breath is fast now, quick harsh pants, and he says nothing, but he smiles and smiles as Esca moves on him, stroking him with the one hand and fucking him with the other. Esca's fingers slide in a slow rhythm, in and along, out and back, and Marcus groans and flexes under him. Esca has him, here, all of him, taking him to pieces and remaking him anew.

"I did just this to myself, you know," Esca says, thoughtfully, and Marcus gasps and bites his own lip, hard. "Thinking about you. Touched myself just like this. You never asked about that, but I did, all the time--"

Marcus smiles, shuts his eyes, and comes, spending over Esca's fist, tightening around his fingers, and it is even better than it was when Esca imagined it.

He strokes Marcus gently, slowly, and then disentangles his fingers and slides back up to kiss Marcus, who is sprawled bonelessly across the bed, still with his eyes shut.

"Thought it would be too obvious if I asked about that," Marcus mumbles sleepily, and the corners of his lips curl in a smile. "Besides, I couldn't think of anything to say I hadn't done."

"I wonder if I'll be able to find anything you haven't done," Esca says, and this time he knows Marcus hears the jealousy he did not quite mean to say.

Marcus opens his eyes, then, looking a little guilty, and he reaches out a hand toward Esca. "Oh," he says, "I am sorry. I did not mean to make you think that-- well, of course you will. We will."

"How?" Esca frowns. "You have done everything already. You said."

"Ah, but that was different." Marcus smiles a little.

"I don't understand."

"Told you already," Marcus says and pulls him close. "I haven't done any of it with someone I loved."

"Oh," Esca says, astonished into silence, and Marcus laughs and kisses him and kisses him.

"You see," Marcus whispers against his lips. "It will be well, Esca. All will be well."

Esca grins, and then the thought occurs to him. "Say, if it's all new to you, then... I've never slept with a virgin before."

Marcus shakes with silent laughter. "Damn you, Esca, there's no more wine."

Esca tucks his head tight against Marcus' chest, smiling into the darkness, and everything, everything is right with the world.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ["How About Another Game?"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/644631) by [alby_mangroves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/pseuds/alby_mangroves)




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